Depending on your marketing plan to reach your audience, a combination of online and print messages such as ads, posters, flyers, brochures, and postcards are a great way to advertise your business. 

Here are a few key components to creating an informative and impactful message and design.

This is part of the process we go through when designing our client's pieces. Our professional experience and creativity will give your business the marketing edge. 

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Writing

Who is your audience?:

Write your marketing piece in the language that your particular type of customer will understand. This could also be a good referral source to help build your business.

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Keep your information brief and to the point:

Most people will scan for relevant information and make a decision whether or not to keep reading.

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Features vs. Benefits:

Features are about your product or service. Benefits are about the viewer, "What's in it for me?", "Why do I need this in my life?" etc. Using a combination of both is a good way for the viewer to understand your product or service.

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Timely dates, offers or call to action:

Dates of an event, special offers, or call to action should be in a prominent location and clearly written.

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Contact information:

Put your contact information, and associations at the bottom. If the viewer is interested in more information, they will contact you. 

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Proofread, proofread and proofread some more:

You do the initial proofing. Once you think it is correct, have other people read it. They will have fresh eyes. Our suggestion is to use a professional proofreader. It is deadly if there are grammatical and spelling errors.

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Now comes the design

Brand identity: 

Does your business have a brand look, such as colors, font styles, graphics, etc? Keep that same basic brand look across your marketing materials for a cohesive and familial look. Continued recognition of your brand is vital to being memorable.

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Photos: 

Choose photos that dramatize your message. Photos need to be high quality. Blurry, bad lighting, and bad composition can ruin your attempt to produce a professional and credible marketing piece.

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Graphics: 

Create or use graphics that help to enhance your message. This helps the viewer to identify specific components and/or overall visual feel to your marketing piece.

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Fonts: 

This can be tricky. Start by using one font family. Meaning a font that has different weights, such as, regular, semibold, bold narrow, wide, etc. This will give you a cohesive look. You can also combine different styles, such as script, serif an sans serif. Try to keep no more that three fonts. Some messages and graphics are created with several fonts, but if you don't know enough about design this could start looking bad in a hurry.

 

Laying it all out: 

Now that you have all of your text, photos and graphics, how do you put it all together so that it doesn't look like a hot mess? Organization of elements!

Put your heading at the top. Flow the next important part of your messaging through the main part of the marketing piece and ending at the bottom with your contact information.

Many times there will be a lot of information that needs to be in the flyer. You need to compartmentalize the different pieces of information so that the viewer will be able to decipher each section. You can do this with negative and positive space and/or color blocking. Ultimately, you want your marketing piece to look organized and impactful.

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